


Silver lining

by CheckYourLie (svnwritten)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Development, Friends to Lovers, Kyungsoo is a sweetheart, M/M, Minor Character Death, Plot Is Important, Science Fiction, Supernatural Elements, Urban Fantasy, jongdae is a fighter, sebaek implied, struggling with self-worth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svnwritten/pseuds/CheckYourLie
Summary: The heavens are empty and the freedom is non-existent. In a world like this - where the sky is dark and there is only one rightful god - Jongdae just wants to make a difference.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongdae | Chen
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31
Collections: Shall we Chen? Fictional Fest First Round





	Silver lining

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt SWC319 : Based on Seth Everman's tweet: everyone has that one friend who comes over just to watch tv and eat food from your fridge and defeat god to absorb his powers corrupting the world forever into darkness and play video games and kiss.
> 
> a/n: to the mods: thank you for keeping up with my mess. To the prompter what you expect from this prompt but… I tried. I really did. To the beta: you are once again my hero. I would get here without you, dear!
> 
> It may be shocking to you but this story was a struggle. I just hope that , in the end, I covered everything I wanted. I pasted the content of the prompt I adopted - if you finish reading this fic, please let me know how did you like my take on it, haha  
> And ofc: enjoy reading, I guess

A green flare shot across the dark sky, leaving a faint white glow sticking out in the plain darkness. A couple of seconds later the sky lightened up with dozens of flares that followed the first one. They looked almost like fireworks.

But there was no occasion to celebrate.

The man hidden behind the recycle containers tried to calm down his frantic breathing. He crouched down, watching as the flares dissolved in the complete darkness. His mood instantly spurred. He had hoped that they would manage to burn out at least a couple of holes in the sky before the god stepped out of his tower.

A few more flares shot out in the sky, but they ended up being put down even faster than the previous ones. 

The man crawled out of hiding and rushed upstairs to take his assigned position. With his right hand, he readjusted his goggles and pointed his sniper at the person standing in the middle of the main square. Through the lens, he could see god’s every feature - his slightly round cheeks, thin lips, and dark eyes,

God named himself “baekhyun” but the sniper, and the organization he represented, thought that putting a name to that face was making him more human. And he had lost all his human traits a long time ago, sucking them in along with all the light. Leaving a dark hole in the place where his humanity used to be stored.

_ baekhyun _ could title himself an undefeatable god all he wanted, but the sniper knew better. 

_ Gods could bleed too.  _

In a way.

The sniper had seen that himself.

Snatching the last remaining lights that dared to flicker across the sky, god looked around before smiling sharply and floating back to his tower. The sniper cursed under his breath and folded his gun back. So bombarding the Coral Core Tower with light wouldn’t weaken god’s power either. They had to figure out a different way to crash that leach. 

The sniper looked at his watch. Ever since god captured the sun to devour it piece by piece, it was hard to tell the time. Still, everyone knew that they were running out of it. 

“D.O to Suho. D.O to Suho,” the sniper rasped to his earphone, “Sabotage sabotaged. The leach stole all the light we shot at the tower.”

Something cracked in the earphone, making the sniper wince. 

“Suho to D.O. Suho to D.O.” the earpiece cracked, “Unfortunate but not unexpected. Thank you for reporting. Call off the rest.”

“Copy that,” murmured D.O, sliding his sniper in the special pocket inside his jacket. 

There was a beat of silence in the earphone but the sniper still hadn’t ended the call. The officer on the other side of the line patiently waited for the closing formula.

“Junmy- I mean officer…” the sniper gnawed at his bottom lips, his hands pushed into the pockets of his jeans. His cheeks were pink with embarrassment. 

“Yes?” the voice in the earphone asked a little bit hesitantly. 

The snipers pulled off his goggles in favour of his old glasses. He cleared out his throat, trying to clear his voice out of shame.

“What does any of this mean to Ch-”

“It’s not a conversation for now, sergeant.” 

Dark eyes behind thick glasses stung with angry tears. Avoiding the answer was an answer nonetheless. The sniper had the answer he feared. Junmyeon might have had as well openly confirm his worries. 

“Copy that,” the sniper chose to say instead. “Until the sky lights up again, officer.”

“Until the sky lights up again, sergeant.” murmured the officer, pitching his voice softer than the ethics suggested, “And, Kyungsoo? Go back home. You need to rest.”

The sniper looked at the sky above him. It was pitch black save for a few dots marking stars that were too far away to tempt the god to reach out for them. The man hummed into the earphone.

“See you tomorrow, Junmyeon,” he replied, ending the call.

If he wanted to get home, he would have to go left, sneak across the Reef and escape to the outskirts through one of the holes in the Northern Wall. The sniper had covered this path dozens of times. 

He started going right. There was another place he liked to call ‘home’ too. And now - it seemed - that he would have to take extra care of that.

҉ 

The soft knocking to the doors successfully swept away barely developed dreams. The hair on Jongdae’s nape raised. By habit his hand flew straight to the semiautomatic pistol he kept under his pillow. It was Junmyeon who taught him that. “You could never be too safe, Jongdae,” he said. Jongdae couldn’t agree more.

Living in the Citadel had one major advantage and one major disadvantage. First one: he was hiding in plain sight. Second one: his cover could be blown at any given moment and he wouldn’t even be able to notify the MAMA on time.

The knocking sound reverberated through the walls again. This time louder. More forceful and persistent. Jongdae squeezed the leather handle of his gun. His other hand flew to turn on the purple, fluorescent lamp standing next to his couch. He would count to three and if the banging repeated, he would shoot without a warning - that was the plan. 

Suddenly, the blue-chip below Jongdae’s skin on the wrist started glowing with orange light. 

_ In-coming call _

_ K-soo _

Hastily, without letting go of the gun, Jongdae pressed the chip to be welcomed by a hiss straight to his ear-canal.

“For fuck’s sake Chen. Open the door, I’m freezing.” Kyungsoo cursed loudly at the end and ended the call.

Jongdae exhaled, feeling his shoulder relax. He pushed himself up from the couch and rushed to the front door. He looked through the visier one time - just to be sure - and smiled upon seeing a familiar mop of black hair and big round eyes - that were currently sending daggers straight into the lens of the camera. Jongdae muffled a chuckle and pressed the opening button.

“God damn it, Chen.” Kyungsoo greeted, taking his automatic sniper rifle out of the inner pocket and putting it on the side. “What’s the point of you living in the Citadel if you never open your door.” he sighed, before sliding further into the flat. He sounded like something, or someone, dragged him across the main square during an acidic rainstorm. Repeatedly. 

That’s how Jongdae knew not to ask questions about today’s mission. 

Besides, he had seen most of it from his window, securely hidden behind the thick curtain.

_ Jongdae never took part in missions and combat attacks. He always stayed at home. It was for his safety - Junmyeon said. Jongdae hated that. _

“Good evening to you too, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae smiled, stopping his eyes on Kyungsoo’s rifle. The easiest way to determine possible injuries was to check if his beloved rifle suffered any damages. 

_ Jongdae’s biggest fear was that one day he would see the rifle broken beyond repair.  _

This time the gun looked more or less brand new. Jongdae could sigh with relief once again. His hand ran through blonde curls, letting them fall on his face, providing some kind of a barrier between Kyungsoo and him. Creating a substitute of a distance that Jongdae knew he should keep. 

“Do you want some tea, Soo?” he asked, turning around on his heel to see his best friend already sneaking through the shelves in his tiny kitchen. 

Kyungsoo hummed in response and put a small jar on the counter. Jongdae rolled his eyes at the characteristic picture of a brown bean printed on the packaging. Of course, out of all things Jongdae had in his kitchen, Kyungsoo would choose coffee. No matter how hard Jongdae tried to hide it away from him - Kyungsoo always found it.

_ Because that’s usually what good spies do - find things that are hidden. _

Jongdae shook his head faking disappointment, “You know that you shouldn’t drink that.” he cautiously stepped closer to Kyungsoo. His eyes followed every move and looked for any hint of a minor injury. “On the contrary to your beliefs, drinking coffee doesn’t mean you can stop sleeping, Soo,” he whined, mentally reprimanding himself for the softness in his voice.

Shrugging Kyungsoo poured the granules with hot water. 

“Do you want some too?” he asked in response, his eyes flying to Jongdae and - quickly as if he was afraid to look longer - back to the extra mug, he was holding.

“You know I don’t like coffee.” Jongdae snorted and started piling his pillows and blanket in the corner of his couch to make it look presentable again. 

Kyungsoo nodded and poured the water into the mug.

The scent of coffee filled the room. It was one of many things Jongdae associated with Kyungsoo. Along with the sound of the sniper rifle, the orange light of the chip on Jongdae’s wrist, the smears left by gunpowder on knuckles, penguins and the fluttering in his chest.

The couch dipped beside Jongdae and the scent of coffee became even more intense.

“I don’t understand why you keep buying coffee if you don’t like it,” said Kyungsoo after a while. The previous tiredness was slowly dissolving, pitching his voice lower and more relaxed. 

_ In the past Jongdae thought that serious and strict Kyungsoo was the hottest thing he’d ever heard. In time, he found it much more attractive when Kyungsoo was relaxed and calm. When he could be himself.  _

Jongdae pulled the polishing cloth out of his pocket and started furiously cleaning the handle of his automatic gun. Anything to calm down the sound of his rattling heart. The metal was sparkling under his electrified fingertips.

“I just like the scent, I guess,” he said after a while, tilting the frame of his pistol a little bit. “It calms me down.”

In the polished reflection, he could see Kyungsoo resting his chin on his palm, while the other cradled the mug close to his chest. His eyes were a little bit hazy, his spectaculars slightly fogged, his eyebrows - for once - not knitted together on the middle of his forehead. And maybe it was the faulty light coming from Jongdae’s purple lamp, or maybe it was just his wistful wishing but it seemed like the corners of Kyungsoo’s lips were tugged upwards.

He looked younger like that.

Jongdae put down his pistol and rested his head on the back of the couch, tilting it towards Kyungsoo. He was close enough to see the specks of dirt sticking to the tips of his hair. Even like that - worn-out and deflected - in Jongdae’s opinion he looked beautiful. Soft, warm and familiar. 

Kyungsoo took a deep breath in, his eyes fluttered and his mouth opened in a silent yawn. Jongdae held back a chuckle threatening to spill out of his mouth.

“You’re really tired, Soo, aren’t you?” he enquired, his fingers playing with threads sticking out of the blanket. 

“With this world? Constantly.” Kyungsoo snorted, fixing his eyes on the pale ceiling. 

_ It had been a while since any of them looked at an open space above their heads. The night was just another depressing reminder about their reality. _

Struck by a sudden idea, Jongdae raised on his feet and rushed to the tv hanging on the wall. The tips of his fingers tickled with energy flowing through him. He rarely entertained himself like that at home, but for Kyungsoo?  _ All Jongdae needed was a little bit of focus _ . He could feel Kyungsoo’s gaze on his back.  _ Focus, Kim Jongdae. Let it flow through your system. _

As gently as he could, Jongdae grabbed one of the wires that he plucked out from the wall a while ago and licked its tip. The characteristic metallic buzzing on his tongue made the blood in his veins rush.

“Jongdae?” oh, how low and unsure his voice was. The name resounded like a purr across Jongdae’s body.

Jongdae heart skipped a beat and a few sparks popped at the tips of his fingers. Kyungsoo used his real name so rarely nowadays. It’s always been “Chen” for _safety_ reasons. “Chen” because “Jongdae” sounds like an inhuman name. _But everyone needs to be a bit adventurous from time to time, right?_ _Even Jongdae by playing with fire and even Kyungsoo by saying his name._

Jongdae rubbed the tip of the wire.

Drops of electricity in the purest form were already shining shyly. The screen lightened up.

“Leave that to me,  _ Soo _ .” Jongdae threw over his shoulder, slurring the name a little bit. His body was slowly connecting with the network, making him buzz with new, foreign energy. 

Jongdae’s eyes fell closed and his eyebrows furrowed as he finally found a common channel between himself and the electricity running through the wire. 

Tentatively - as if he was stepping into a lake filled with frigid water - Jongdae slowly dove into the network.

In an instant he found himself standing in the middle of intersections of wires and networks running all above his head, beneath his feet and around his non-physical body. 

_ Now, which one should he steal to make Kyungsoo happy? _

His energy let out a bust of orange-colored steam.  _ Embarrassing.  _ But Jongdae found himself internally grinning widely anyway.

Delicately, as if he wanted to capture a butterfly - he grasped one of the light, goldish threads and pulled at it gently. Images full of blood and gunshots flew through his head and he instantly let go off the thread. Delicate threads carried the most violent messages sometimes. - People didn’t realize that but Jongdae breaking one line could collapse the energy within an entire city. Trying to be careful just wasn’t enough. He  _ needed _ to be if he wanted to remain unnoticed. - His finger hooked around one of the thin straps that looked like they were made of paper. Before he saw anything, his ears filled with loud, erotic moans. He quickly let go of the strap, hoping that the channel didn’t appear on his tv, in front of surprised Kyungsoo. Porns were for lonely nights and longing. Not for an evening with a _ friend. _

Certainly not for spending time with Kyungsoo if Jongdae wanted to keep himself sane.

Finally, wary of his previous experience, he touched one of the silver lines running next to his head. This one was a little bit thicker but its light was dimmed, almost non-existent. A fraction of his energy pushed into the wire and the next moment all he could see was a dark forest filled with tiny fireflies. Jongdae smiled - knowing that this time his physical body would smile too - and tied his own wire to the silver line.

His energy rushed back along the wire. The sparks were cuddling to his energy and he could feel himself bursting and glowing. He knew that he would be back in a split of a second.

Jongdae opened his eyes and let go of the wire. His eyes were shining with a silver glow. The screen behind him was lightened up with thousands of fireflies. Jongdae cocked his head and looked at Kyungsoo smugly.

“You said you’re tired of this world so I decided to show you a better one,” he said weakly, breathing heavily.

Kyungsoo was gaping at him like a fish - with his eyes wide opened and his jaw hanging ajar. He was blinking rapidly like he usually did whenever Jongdae performed something like that. Like his brain -  _ Kyungsoo’s gorgeous, genius brain _ \- couldn’t wrap on what he had seen.

Jongdae smiled wickedly.

He knew that it was beyond what humans could do.

It always left _ them  _ speechless. Astonished. Terrified sometimes. This time: Kyungsoo looked  _ marveled _ . 

He cleared his throat and looked at Jongdae sharply. Only because of the smile that had already been gracing his lips, Jongdae didn’t feel a bit of fear.

“That was dangerous, Jongdae, you shouldn’t do that.” he declared, taking in Jongdae’s disheveled hair and dizzy look. “Someone could track you down.”

Jongdae threw his head back in a fit of laughter. Raw electricity and sheer wildness were bubbling beneath his skin. For a moment - just for a split of a second, standing in front of Kyungsoo - he felt absolutely _ free _ . 

“Don’t worry, Soo,” Jongdae creaked, the melody of his laughter still spiking the air with colorful sparks. “There’s no way someone’s going to catch me down there.” he declared lightly, rubbing the leftover stars into his skin.

And, you see. Nobody asked, but if someone did Kyungsoo would say that he thought this is how a god should look like: 

_ Pure chaos locked in the body of a person with wild eyes, lips curved into a mischievous smile and surrounded with air that cracked in his presence.  _

҉ 

The reactor roared loudly and Jongdae pulled himself out of the lining that he was connected with. The muzzle of the lining was burnt out. Thick smoke was gathering under the ceiling. It smelled like a fire burning with electric sparks. Jongdae didn’t have to look around to know that Minseok and Junmyeon had left the room a long time ago. Only he was completely unaffected with thick clouds of electricity hanging in the air. 

_ There are things only gods can sustain. _

GOD. Genetically Over-advanced Droid. Not an android because they weren’t built by humans and not humans because they were never born. So a form of a droid because no one knew how to classify them if it was humans who put them into their bodies. And because “a droid” sounded less terrifying than “a demon”. 

Gods. An odd experiment brought upon humanity by long-forgotten cults and dark magic. A result of a flirt between constant progress and yearning for the past. 

Gods. Souls touched with something divine, mysterious, dangerous and gorgeous all at once. Creatures escaping the understanding of scientists, biologists and theologists all together. A living creature who wasn't born and didn't have a father nor a mother. 

A god. Someone who created themselves out of thin air on a whim of their own will and came to fulfill human’s begging. (People forgot that it was their doing a long time ago, anyway. It was their merit when they could control the gods. It became their problem when they realized that gods were creatures with unique personality, traits and abilities - not puppets. That’s when the government transformed the word “god” into an acronym that meant something advanced but not _ terrifying _ .) 

Each god was three things: incredibly powerful, sickenly unnatural, and rare beyond any measurement. 

Each god was like that but (because of rage and hatred and arrogance) now only two of them were left in the world. Only one known to the public. He called himself. Baekhyun. Made of flesh and bright light. The other one? The other one was Kim Jongdae. Made of steel and electricity.

Not many people knew about his existence, even less about his identity. It wasn’t a secret he liked the share. Trusting the wrong people could be catastrophic for the entire city, no scratch it - the entire planet. 

And Jongdae? Jongdae was… more things than “powerful”. And his power was more than incredible. It was. Unrestrained, messy, hungry and hard to control. That’s why MAMA never sent him on a mission. They could be one step from succeeding, and he could push them one step away from disaster.

Kim Jongdae was many things according to the others. According to himself, he was mostly emotional, disruptive and completely and  _ utterly _ useless because of the wilderness he couldn’t contain. Because of the energy gathering in his body.

And sometimes - like today - it was a lot to handle. Too much to handle. 

So he allowed himself to breathe in the electricity like it was oxygen because to him there was no difference between them.

He still felt ticklish when the collective of his soul finally settled back in his body. Pleasant shivers were running up and down his cores, when he finally brought himself to look at the reactor he exited a couple of minutes ago. 

At least half of it was fried from the inside.  _ The remains of the burn were still evident in his soul. There was something masochistic in that. _ Minseok had been working for months to put the reactor together, to make it strong enough for Jongdae to force his way  _ anywhere _ he wanted. For him to make use of his energy. For him to dwell and dwell and  _ dwell _ into the Coral Core until there was nothing left. 

It wasn’t enough though. Physicality, mechanics and hard-work wasn’t enough to contain the full force of god’s that burst out of the purest electricity of a thunder. 

The same energy that was lazily flowing through Jongdae’s body, that made his soul and heart  _ oh-so-gentle _ , usually brought nothing but destruction to the world around him. Jongdae gulped with difficulty. For now, he could feel that its hunger was satisfied for a while. A temporary inner peace was mixing with gnawing outer anxiety.

Cautiously Jongdae slipped off the table, ripping out various coils and wires that there clasped over his skin to measure his parameters. He could manipulate every single one of the results seen on the screen. He usually did just that.

Resigned Jongdae slowly approached the reactor. The sparks were still popping at the tips of cables. They looked like they were mocking him. Just like younger siblings mock their older siblings. 

_ “Maybe it wouldn’t be destroyed if you controlled yourself better,” _ whispered a poisonous voice in Jongdae’s head. Its echo bounced off the walls of the room.  _ “Maybe you would be more useful if you controlled yourself better.” _

_ Because jumping into the network was easier, if he knew a way out but in new places Jongdae was: lost, confused and angry. Mostly afraid of a failure. Too much could depend on him. A whole world’s faith is a whole damn much to carry. _

Jongdae snapped his attention back to the reactor. A big, black hole in the machine was glowing with utter darkness right in front of his eyes. _ Same darkness he could see if he looked up at the sky. A twin darkness if you may. _ That was all that was left after the main sensor. The one that was supposed to be a mirror-self of a sensor installed in the heart of the Coral Core Tower, that held the sun captive and that kept humanity away from freedom. If he learnt stories locked in the Coral Core he would be able to  _ fix _ the world.

If Jongdae couldn’t handle the _ copy  _ of the sensor, how could he carefully disarm the _ real thing  _ without  _ someone _ noticing. 

Thick, silver tears start dropping down his face, kissing down high cheekbones with wet smudges and tracing patterns on Jongdae’s semi-porcelain skin. He hadn’t realized he was crying, until the door to the room opened.

“Don’t touch me,” he whispered. He hoped to be intimidating and sharp, but - in his own ears - ended up sounding wounded and fragile. “I- I’m still full of that shit.” Jongdae hissed weakly. The ‘ _ I could harm you _ ’ was left unvoiced.

Even though that’s what he wanted, his heart dropped when Kyungsoo stepped back. 

_ He probably watched Jongdae’s failure from the beginning to the very end. _ Jongdae would be  _ terrified  _ of himself too.

Blinded with tears, and glitching multi-layered screens in his eyes, Jongdae hopelessly caught Kyungsoo’s gaze. No spectacles, no glasses, just Kyungsoo - something to mirror his beautiful soul. Another spasm rolled through Jongdae’s body, when he noticed the anxiety rimming the edges of Kyungsoo’s eyes. The fear was twisting the natural softness.

Kyungsoo’s gloved hand grasped Jongdae’s wrist. 

“Let’s take you somewhere else,” he said, gently urging Jongdae to go forward. “They can measure whatever the fuck they want once you’re calmed down,” Kyungsoo added a little bit louder.

Maybe if Jongdae focused enough he would have realized that the last sentence wasn’t meant for him. 

Maybe he would have caught the implication that he deserved an ounce of privacy too.

҉ 

The last time Jongdae had been in the barracks, he was still inexperienced and heart-broken after Sandara’s loss. Beautiful, wise Sandara who was like an older sibling to him. Intelligent, skilled Sandara with soft smiles and knives instead of teeth. Losing Sandara - the only of his kind that Jongdae had been familiar with was like a stab in the chest.

Ultimately, it was her loss that pushed Jongdae to search for the resistance’s council - MAMA. In a way he had to lose someone dear to meet someone even dearer - Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo with big, round eyes and heart-shaped lips, with a deep voice and gentle words. Jongdae had trusted him with his secret a year into their friendship, despite Junmyeon’s strict orders (“ _ no one should know Jongdae. Minseok and I are too many people already. Who is agent D.O anyway? _ ”). Back then Jongdae couldn’t choose a word that would describe his relationship with Kyungsoo. It took ages to put words to emotions that weren’t supposed to be wired into his liquid energy. 

Now, Jongdae knew exactly how he felt about Kyungsoo, just as well as the fact that he should never feel this way. Sometimes Jongdae thought that perhaps his godly nature had been flawed since the beginning if he could feel like that.

Now, Jongdae was sitting on Kyungsoo’s old bed with his nails digging into the soft synthetic skin inside his palms.

Now, his heart was beating erratically for various reasons. His nails sank in the skin even harder. 

Now, Kyungso was sitting on the floor, right in front of Jongdae, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. 

And, finally, now, the only thing Jongdae could think about was that if he was better at being  _ himself _ , neither of them would be sitting there. Neither of them would be worried about their life.

“Sorry about messing up again,” Jongdae’s voice hitched at the end of the sentence. The silence made him hear the energy sloshing through his system. “Not very  _ godly  _ of me.” he laughed weakly. The sound was so wet, that it was suspiciously similar to a sob.

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened in surprise. The tip of his index finger rested on the top of Jongdae’s knee, trying to detect if electricity flooded back into its rightful places. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” the remaining four fingers covered Jongdae’s knee. “You are too much, we couldn’t have known.”

Jongdae winced.

“I mean. You’re too powerful for us to comprehend,” Kyungsoo rephrased quickly, sensing his miswording. “It’s not your fault. Almost every day you risk your life and safety to steal the information for us.” his fingers started drawing circles on Jongdae’s jeans. “You risk getting  _ caught  _ every single day.”

Jongdae felt his energy jump at these words. The tears had already dried on his cheeks.

“I don’t risk anything. You and I both know that I’m assigned to missions that are impossible to mess up. I will  _ never _ get caught.” Jongdae shook his head firmly. He glanced at Kyungsoo behind his long, blonde curls. His body tensed involuntarily. “I will never get caught. They won’t allow it, Kyungsoo, so don’t worry about me.”

_ They wouldn’t allow it because he was too precious. That’s why they didn’t know that during each mission Jongdae pushed his boundaries a little bit further, crossing over what was appropriate, passing through the lines drawn for him by the system. _

_ He could get caught but no one knew that. _

Kyungsoo’s eyes were big and round and unblinking and it felt like they were staring into Jongdae’s soul, seeing through all of his lies and reading all of his fears. As quickly as he could Jongdae folded his feelings into a tiny paper envelope and tucked it behind his heart, hoping that Kyungsoo wouldn’t see it. 

_ He couldn’t see, couldn’t find out.  _

_ He couldn’t learn that gods could love, because gods shouldn’t be able to do that. _

_ No one should know that Jongdae’s even more flawed than they already suspected. _

_ Jongdae couldn’t get caught on that either. _

Another shiver ran through his body, pushing at every inch of his own semi-synthetic cage. Delicate pads inside Jongdae’s palms broke under the pressure of his sharp nails.

_ Gods couldn’t bleed. Not with blood at least. _

Jongdae _ couldn’t  _ bleed. Instead, a couple of burning sparks burst out of the open wounds. Kyungsoo looked down and stared at the damage. The sparks crawled up Jongdae’s palms to disappear beneath the sleeves of his jumper. 

_ Kyungsoo’s trembling sigh. Jongdae’s weak chuckle. _

As gently as he could, Kyungsoo grasped Jongdae’s hands and raised them to inspect the crescent-shaped marks, rimmed with drops of electricity.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Jongdae. He felt like he had said that hundreds, thousands of times. His voice wobbled like a tiny banner. Maybe it was the white type of banners. The one that meant surrender. 

Kyungsoo rested Jongdae’s hands on the knee he was touching a moment ago. The trace of warmth was still lingering on the stiff fabric. Still, warmer than Jongdae’s skin had ever been. Kyungsoo reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his glasses to carefully put them on his nose. As a matter of fact, Jongdae knew that Yixing suggested Kyungsoo switching to electronic lenses many times, promising that he would make them pro bono. Kyungsoo always declined the offer. 

With glasses sitting securely on his nose, he dug a tiny healing cream out of his pocket. Opening the bottle, Kyungsoo grasped Jongdae’s shaking hand once again and applied a bit of the cream over the sore spots.

Jongdae smiled sadly. “Don’t worry about that,” he repeated for the third time like it would change anything. “It doesn’t even hurt and the cream won’t help anyway.”

The grip around Jongdae’s hand tightened. Another spark crawled out of the torn skin, but this time it jumped on Kyungsoo’s fingers. It went unnoticed.

His eyes -  _ soft eyes, dark eyes _ \- were clouded with something Jongdae couldn’t put a finger on. If he tried pulling his hand away, it would turn out that the grasp on his hand was too firm. So he didn’t try. Or maybe it was the warmth that kept him like that.

“When will you finally accept that even if you’re a god, I still worry. You can be hurt, you can be in pain, you can  _ die _ . So I worry,” Kyungsoo said quietly. Despite the low volume, his voice was sharp like a knife and deadly like a bullet shot straight in the chest. Straight into the heart. “I will always worry,” he repeated, delicately patting the top of Jongdae’s hand. 

The red half-moons inside Jongdae’s hand tingled, under the touch. His thumb brushed against Kyungsoo’s wrist. He could have sworn that he felt sparks on the tips of his fingers but this time - that he knew for sure - they weren’t real.

Jongdae slipped his hands away from the caring touch and crossed his arms. Every inch of his body was buzzing with  _ the sheer want _ to move closer and to wiggle his fingers under Kyungsoo’s jacket and to feel his heartbeat. Instead, he tucked his hands under his armpits, trying to hide the twitching of his muscles under the skin.

Kyungsoo’s hand dropped slowly on his lap. Jongdae’s fingertips pressed harder into the ribcage.

_ Gods weren’t allowed to love, and surely no one in their right mind would love a god either. _

And yet. Kyungsoo looked heart-broken.

҉ 

It was Wednesday, when Jongdae decided that he was ready to change the world.

His chair fell to the ground with a loud crash. Junmyeon watched him with a mixture of confusion and hesitance.

Secretly, Jongdae was glad that Kyungsoo wasn’t there.

“I can do this.” His voice was calm and strong. This is how he always should have sounded.  _ This is how gods sound. _ “I’m ready.”

He could feel the council’s eyes on him: boring holes in his body, in his face. Trying to break through the armory made of porcelain and synthetic plastic and artificial skin and so-so many imperfections that he sewed into his body. 

Internally, Jongdae sneered, seeing the irony of the situation. Over half of MAMA’s most trusted members of the council didn’t know that Jongdae was never  _ born _ . He was conjured. Pulled by some unknown power and locked in this body that he made himself. Every patch and every flaw was his and was done by him. Half of them didn’t know that before Jongdae was a person, he was mindless, heartless and wild chaos that prickled with deadly electricity and tore the sky apart on stormy nights. 

He was calmer now than back then. And yet. The main sensor in the chest was rattling flushed with massive waves of uncontrolled energy. ( _ “Anxiety”, that was the emotion _ \- supplied his mind helpfully.)

Jongdae tucked that anxiety into a tissue paper and stuffed it behind the walls of his heart, next to  _ Kyungsoo-related feelings _ . He took a deep breath. 

The sky outside was almost pitch black and the clock showed early afternoon when Jongdae decided to spit out his secret, lay it out to people who hated his kind. It was Wednesday. 

It didn’t even cross his mind to ask about Junmyeon’s permission. He was done being helpless and useless.

“I will break-in,” Jongdae repeated firmly.

“With all due respect, Chen,” Minseok -  _ Minseok whose reactor Jongdae almost blew to the dust, Minseok who knew Jongdae’s identity since day one _ \- tried interfering but Jongdae looked at him so sharply that the next words died in his throat.

Jongdae’s tongue wetted his bottom lip. “With all due respect,  _ officer Xiumin _ , this is not your call.” he set the tips of his fingers on the flat surface of the table, pressing at the wood to ground himself. “I’m not asking for permission here.”

He didn’t expect anyone else to stand up. He was surprised to see Chanyeol - a man of big words but the even bigger heart - raise from his seat.  _ Chanyeol was a good friend, but he didn’t know what Jongdae was. He could change his mind about their friendship. _

“You’re an outstanding hacker, Chen,” he started tentatively, his eyes running from Jongdae to Junmyeon and backward. “But the Coral Core isn't something you can crack open from your own place. We’ve established that already,” he continued and Jongdae listened to him patiently. He had already made up his mind anyway. “You’d have to get into the Coral Tower and hack into the system from there. And we can only expect that the most important files are close to impossible to hack.”

“I agree with Chanyeol,” Jongin scratched the back of his head, “None of us doubts your skills but this is too dangerous… We don’t need a martyr.” 

Jongdae felt like screaming. Instead, he straightened his back and crossed arms on his chest. He hadn’t realized how long he had been holding his breath. Not like it mattered anyway, he could go hours without breathing. 

He cleared his throat.

“You don’t need a martyr,” he said slowly, his gaze traveling from one person to another until he drew a circle and looked at Junmyeon. He prayed, oh he prayed, that Kyungsoo wouldn’t walk into the room right now. “You need a god… And I’m more than happy to provide.”

҉ 

His feet felt light when he walked down the hallway, his semi-automatic pistol hanging securely on his hip bone. At first - when his admission was hanging up in the air, waiting to be snatched - he heard nothing but static, white noise. Now - his ears were filled with poorly hidden murmurs and whispers. 

The rumor was out before, Jongdae exited the council meeting. He glanced at Chanyeol walking beside him - his stiff posture and awkward glances. Ah, Jongdae forgot how hard it was to handle people who weren’t familiar with his nature.

“Don’t overthink it, Chanyeol,” Jongdae smiled, briefly brushing his shoulder against Chanyeol’s. “I’m still  _ me _ .” 

Chanyeol jerked away. As if Jongdae burned him. As if he sent sparks through his body. Jongdae’s smile flattered a little bit.

“I know,” Chanyeol rubbed his shoulder. Jongdae doubted that he did that consciously. “It’s just… It’s so… So…”

Oh, Jongdae knew how this sentence went.

“Scary? Unsettling? Terrifying? Freaky? Disgusting?” he suggested, keeping his voice light but  _ bleeding _ inside.

Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. 

“It’s just odd.” he finished himself thoughtfully. “We’ve always kept you safe and now-”

_ Stop the time. Hold the world. Freeze the life. _

Everything halted and Jongdae’s vision shrunk to the person who appeared in front of him. Seemingly out of the thin air. (But of course, it was impossible because Kyungsoo wasn’t a god. He was human. Painfully so. Maybe that’s why Jongdae never stood a chance against him and his calm voice. Because while Kyungsoo was a sea after the storm, a god like Jongdae was bundles of raw emotions even if they tried to hide it. He was  _ the  _ storm.)

“Kim Jongdae. Greetings.” Kyungsoo sounded _ so  _ collected. Jongdae couldn’t decide if he hated or loved that.

“Kyungsoo.” he breathed out.

“Soo! Have you heard the news?” Chanyeol asked with curiosity. “Our Chen here-”

“Is on his way for a suicide mission, yes I heard.” Kyungsoo snapped, his hand reaching out and curling around Jongdae’s collar. Suddenly their faces were close enough to push the last ounce of oxygen out of Jongdae’s lungs. No place for breathing, even if there was a gaping space between them.

_ Now, Jongdae knew exactly how it felt to be inches away from a catastrophe. _

The world outside could have blown out because all the peace in Kyungsoo’s eyes was gone. Jongdae trembled as if his soul tried to escape before the unavoidable blow was delivered.

“I got this, Kyungsoo, don’t worry.” he heard himself saying.

Kyungsoo’s eyes grew colder, spitting ice-flames and sharp shreds of glass. Piercing Jongdae through. Making his confidence wobble and melt at the edges.

“I  _ always _ worry about you.”

“But-”

“No buts.” Kyungsoo raised his finger and dug it in the middle of Jongdae’s chest. Hard enough for his energy to whirl nervously. “Now, tell me when exactly do you plan on proceeding with that suicidal mission of yours? There’s no way in the world I’m letting you go alone.”

Kyungsoo’s voice mellow, honey-like and deep flowing smoothly into Jongdae's ears, trying to get straight to his heart. Sticking to the walls of his throat and trying to close it. Trying to make him melt even more. 

_ When exactly? _

And Jongdae thought he’d never find it in himself to lie to Kyungsoo but this one time? This one time he did.

҉ 

Curly strands on Jongdae’s nape bristled as he walked through dipped in the dreamland city. Maybe it was his paranoia, or maybe his plan was known to Baekhyun before he even stepped outside, but it felt like the sky was even darker than usual. More gloomy. Navy hues coming from the burn-out sky and black shadows seemed to wrap around every inch of Jongdae’s body and he wished, oh he wished, that he wasn’t alone.

_ He wouldn’t be if he didn’t lie. _

The sour after-taste of what he told Kyungsoo was still lingering in his mouth. 

His thoughts drifted to Kyungsoo - who was hopefully sleeping soft and sound in his one-room flat on the outskirts. He was most likely getting his sweet rest before one of the most important acts of his life. Or so he thought. Because - and that idea was what pushed Jongdae forward - once Kyungsoo woke up, perhaps the world would be a bright place again. He would be angry at Jongdae for putting the plan in motion a day earlier but eventually, he would forgive him.

_ (That was if Jongdae made it through the night.) _

_ “There are many things that can go wrong.” lectured him Minseok the other night - sweet, sweet Minseok who was the only one who knew of Jongdae’s plan - looking nothing but dead-serious. “Firstly, you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Secondly, you only vaguely know what you’re looking for. Thirdly… you can get hurt. Badly, Jongdae. Really badly.” _

_ Jongdae nodded stiffly.  _

_ “I know,” he breathed out, pulling at the edges of the blueprints. The sorrow and worries in his voice were completely undetectable. “Can we run through the plan once again?” _

Jongdae shuddered at the memory and shoved it back into his unused storage space. He really didn’t need a reminder of what could happen.

The thing was. Jongdae couldn’t die. _ Gods don’t die _ . 

_ “We don’t die, but we can dissolve into what we come from. Only our primary nature can take us down.” Sandara explained to him once. Many, many years ago. “We defragment. Come back to our previous state of mind. Our consciousness breaks into thousands of pieces and they fill the voids in this world.” she looked at him sadly. “There are many voids to fill, Jongdae. It’s impossible to patch together a shattered soul.” _

_ The next day warriors - “cowards!” Junmyeon called them once - of the Ministry smashed her body against the surface of a raging ocean and she broke into the foam. Her heart came back to the ocean.  _

Gods couldn’t die but breaking into thousands of pieces didn’t sound too nice either.

The thing was. Jongdae had to be ready for that too. A tornado of thoughts was making rounds in his head. He had  _ so _ much to say, all of sudden. Words he never had were sitting heavy on his tongue.

Jongdae pressed his intercom. “Xiumin.”

“We’re responsible for each other, let’s skip these dumb pseudos, Jongdae” Minseok’s voice resounded in Jongdae’s head. “I’m basically the last bastion of hope for you if something goes wrong. I’d rather address a  _ Jongdae _ , than some  _ Chen _ . We’re friends, get over it.”

_ Minseok - sweet Minseok whose reactor Jongdae burned to crisp. Minseok of soft eyes and harsh jokes. Minseok, trustworthy Minseok. _

Jongdae felt himself sniffing soundly. 

“Y-yeah, sure. Minseok,” he whispered through the choke raising in his throat. “I just wanted to ask you to tell Soo that-”

“You’re gonna tell him yourself, Jongdae.” Minseok cut in with a mixture of determination and nervousness. “Leaving some things unsaid… It will keep you motivated to get out of there _ alive _ .” 

“But what if-”

“What keeps you alive, Jongdae?” asked Minseok unceremoniously.

Jongdae’s main core - in the color of steel and diamonds - wheezed inside his chest. He could feel the trembling of his electricity beneath his chest. 

He heard a soft tapping sound coming through the intercom.

“That’s what I thought, Jongdae,” Minseok hushed and it was like he was whispering straight into Jongdae’s ear which - of course - he did but it felt like Minseok  _ was there _ . Occupying space right next to Jongdae.  _ Perhaps Jongdae had never realized that he had more people willing to place their bets on him than he could guess.  _ “There are things you have that you should say face-to-face.”

The dim red light of the Coral Core Tower fell upon his face as he walked out of the shadows surrounding the main square. He could have sworn that he saw a silhouette of a person in one of the windows but second later - they were gone.

“I suppose you’re right, Minseok,” Jongdae said softly, crossing the square. “Thanks for being on the other side. I will send everything I find useful. And thank you… for what you told me. I needed that.”

The quiet purring of Minseok’s laptop was falling straight into Jongdae’s ears. 

He didn’t think twice as he ended the call.

҉ 

Getting inside the Tower was the easy part - Jongdae concluded after sneaking through the maze of narrow air-ventilation ducks. Was he covered with soot? A little bit. Was he stinking of dust and (most likely) tones of bacteria? Most likely. Did any of that matter? Perhaps. Because he’d rather face a god looking like one. Maybe, he would feel a little bit more powerful then. 

“ _ If everything goes well, I’ll never even see Baekhyun.” _ Jongdae assured himself weakly, not quite believing his own lies. _ “Sneak in, steal, sneak out, destroy the system, disappear, _ ” he repeated the plan

But there was something - some inkling - under his skin that meeting Baekhyun was unavoidable. A nasty emotion -  _ fear _ , he noted absently - was slowly pulsating through his body, in a way similar electricity usually did. Jongdae shook his head with determination.

“I’m a  _ man _ on a  _ mission _ .” he encouraged himself bravely.

The problem, however, presented itself rather quickly: in the maze of corridors and stairs, Jongdae was slowly starting to lose his orientation. He knew that the Core Coral was in the middle and that was all. The fact that blueprints of the inner sectors of the tower were mostly nonexistent didn’t help either. Cold sweat was dripping over Jongdae’s tormented soul: the longer he was walking, the more obvious it became that he had no idea where he should head to next. 

Every minute could be crucial to the plan. Every minute could push him further into Baekhyun’s arms. Every second could be a deal-breaker.

_ Kyungsoo would know what to do.  _ \- thought Jongdae bitterly before shaking his head. Golden curls were falling all over his face and he pushed them back nervously. 

For a while, he felt an urge to reach out to Minseok -  _ Minseok at least, since connecting with Kyungsoo was out of the discussion _ \- but, ultimately, he came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t do any good. Minseok was far away and had as little information about the tower as Jongdae himself. No, calling him would only make him worry. Which was the last thing, Jongdae wanted to do.

It was a mission for a god, a savior. It was Jongdae’s chance to finally make himself  _ useful _ . A final proof that keeping him in a golden cage with walls made out of steel was a mistake. A mistake he signed up for a long time ago and now - came to regret it.

Time was slowly blending into something abstract and vague when Jongdae stood in front of a door that looked like they were made of nacre - milky white but shining with various colors that only the most beautiful rainbow could offer. A door for a tower inhabited by a god who was light incarnate and for the sun he harbored. 

Anticipation and electricity were already gathering in the pads of Jongdae’s fingers as he pressed the doorknob. 

The door was open. 

Jongdae took a step back before he even fully walked into the room. 

It was the Coral Core - it had to be. Shining lazy with hues of red, orange and pink. It looked like a liquid sunset locked in a box as high as the ceiling and as wide as the room itself. Illuminated particles floating in circles behind thick glass - crashing against each other, mixing with waves of brightness and melting against the glossy walls of the box.  _ Astonishing. _

As spectacular as it was: the view made Jongdae’s heart rattle painfully. To see so much light stuffed into such a limited space...  _ The purest form of power kept under a key in a cage made of glass and metal. The irony.  _

All the light Baekhyun stole locked in one room, to shine and serve only for him and in his service. Jongdae’s eyebrows furrowed at the immensity of the gloss in front of him. And, suddenly, it occurred to him - and it was a very uncomfortable prospect - that no one, not even god made of light, could devour so much energy. Even their bodies,  _ bodies of gods _ , had their restrictions that were impossible to bend. Of all people - Jongdae knew that best. 

_ Something didn’t add up. _

Unconsciously, he moved forward until he was standing right in front of the Coral Core filled with the eternity of light. He raised his hand - sparks already glistering at the tips of his fingers - when suddenly he felt eyes -  _ unwanted, attentive, strange but sending a zip of familiarly down his spine _ \- staring at his back. His jaw clenched and his body tensed. The electricity was gradually pulsing through his consciousness as if it wanted to wipe out his clear thinking. It was like a tiger growing inside him.

Jongdae turned around.

It was embarrassing but his first thought was that Baekhyun’s face had more details than he imagined. Sure, god’s likenesses were everywhere all over the city: hanging around the Citadel and Reef, and even on the outskirts. Sure, he was an ultimate-kill for the resistance movement, so Jongdae knew how he looked. Sure, Baekhyun was famous, sure, Baekhyun was god.

And yet, it was the first time Jongdae had  _ seen _ Baekhyun. 

Until that moment he was nothing more than a statue carved in stone and heart with a razor-sharp chisel that left dark marks across the world’s history.

First thing Jongdae noticed was an unhealthy amount of curiosity painting Baekhyun’s face. The rest flashed through god’s golden eyes like a thunder: bitterness, nervousness, sadness, hatred, hope, defeat, passion and determination. A fan of emotions. All of that before the corners of Baekhyun’s lips traveled up.

“But please, enjoy yourself.” was the first thing he said to Jongdae. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. In fact, I’m very interested in what exactly you’re planning to do.” his voice grew merrier. Certainly not what Jongdae expected.

“I came here-” Jongdae stopped to clear his throat. “I came here to give the light back to the world.” 

Baekhyun leaned forward, both hands resting on each side of his hips. His head was cocked to the side. 

“Oh? That’s very noble of you,” he cooed, “And you came here all by yourself?”

“Yes,” replied Jongdae harshly, rubbing the tips of his fingers against the sleeves of his jacket. Kyungsoo’s face flashed through his head.  _ Heart-shaped lips that promised starvation and gentle eyes that offered peace. _

Baekhyun straightened up. “That’s very brave of you, little soldier.” 

“I’m a god. Just like you.” Jongdae’s nostrils flared up. His fingers were burning.

“That much is obvious,” Baekhyun sneered in response. He put a hand on the side of his face as he eyed Jongdae up. “I could sense you before, you know? I knew that there’s  _ someone _ … someone like me out there left.” his eyes lightened up unnaturally with a sickish shade of yellow. “I just didn’t know. Who was that? I was asking myself. I don’t know them, do I? I couldn’t tell. But no, obviously I didn’t know them. I  _ don’t _ know you. But I see now… you are… you are of electrics, aren’t you? We could do great things together. You and I. Rule the world, spin the wheel of fortune, twist the meanders of history, bend the laws of nature. You name it.” he smiled widely.

Jongdae tensed. It was expected for Baekhyun to tempt him. To conjure images in his head that could make him hesitant, that could make him grow soft. Jongdae expected, even awaited that, because he knew that if they switched places - he would have done the same.  _ And he knew that it wasn’t a god speaking through him, humans would do just the same. _

The shadow he threw danced on the floor as another - more forceful - a wave of light crashed against the Core’s wall behind his back. Baekhyun’s dilated pupils were melting with his irises. The connection between him and the light was more than obvious. 

“I’m nothing like you. I would never-” Jongdae sounded breathless from the cacophony of emotions coming from Baekhyun like tides. “I wouldn’t  _ dare _ to rob the world from all the light.” 

Something vulnerable, painful, and shaky flashed through Baekhyun’s eyes, pulling his mouth into a half-smile. He looked a breath away from falling to pieces. Jongdae blinked and suddenly all he saw was a man in an armor made with glass shreds and molten lava that tore at his skin. 

Baekhyun’s lips were moving but Jongdae couldn’t catch a sound. 

“I can’t hear you.” he voiced, unsure why he did that. He didn’t know to hear tyrant excuses.

Baekhyun raised his gaze - and it looked like an act of defiance - and his eyes were dipped with darkness. Involuntary Jongdae took a step back. The warmth coming from the core was grazing across the skin on his nape. 

“Do you think I did it on a whim?” Baekhyun’s question cut deep like a knife. “That one day I woke up  _ evil _ ? I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he laughed sardonically.

Tips of Jongdae’s fingers touched the warm glass holding the light together. If he only played it right, he could shoot enough energy to make a crack in the cage - perhaps that would be enough. His skin pricked with electricity when Baekhyun stepped towards him and put his hand on Jongdae’s chest. If Jongdae had a milligram of light it would get sucked into Baekhyun’s skin. But he made sparks and explosions. ( _ If only he knew back then that it was something Baekhyun could steal too.) _ “Tell me have you ever had a special someone, hm?”  _ Kyungsoo. _ “A splinter of divinity forced into a physical body?”  _ Kyungsoo. _ Baekhyun smiled sharply, “I can see in your eyes that you had someone so-”

_ Loud bang echoed through the room.  _

The pearl door leading to the room shook loudly in their frame and a tiny gust of black smoke slipped through the key-hole. Vaguely Jongdae realized that Baekhyun was gripping his biceps. His nerves and main core clattered dangerously. His breath grew shallow. His energy - anxious. Jongdae tried trashing in Baekhyun's hold but it was too late. 

_ Just like he stole images of light, Baekhyun was stealing his white electric sparks and bright yellow explosions. _

“I’ll show you,” Baekhyun whispered into Jongdae’s ear, his breath as feverish as his eyes.

The door opened with a loud slam, sending thousands of milky pearl shreds on the floor. A thinning cloud of smoke was coming from the muzzle. But even smokey vail didn’t manage to completely hide the bursting panic out of Kyungsoo’s eyes. His hand holding a pistol shook violently, as his gaze ran from the Jongdae to Baekhyun. 

“You sick, motherfucker.” growled Kyungsoo at Baekhyun, hint of hysteria clouding his voice. 

Baekhyun’s hand tightened around Jongdae’s arm desperately and pulled him closer. 

Then, everything happened too fast. Fear howled in Jongdae’s ears, when he realized what Kyungsoo was about to do. Boney fingers clothed with black gloves tightened around the handle of the pistol.

“Wait, Soo! Don’t shoot-” ripped out of Jongdae’s throat, when he saw Kyungsoo aiming at the middle of Baekhyun’s chest, with the precision of a trained shooter.

But Jongdae was just a god - built from scratches at the back of some laboratory, made of hope and a great dose of luck, merely blessed with something outstanding. He was just a god - genetic abomination, a flirt between science and a naive faith in a greater good. 

He was just a god - and his voice carried slower than he anticipated. Much slower than it took for a professional shooter to press the trigger. His voice which was too slow to stop unavoidable and fast enough to blend with the sound of a loud bang.

The very last thing Jongdae registered before blacking-out was the panic in Kyungsoo’s eyes, mere twenty feets away from him, and the burn in his chest and against his back.

It was truly a pity that Baekhyun could move with the speed of light itself.

҉ 

Jongdae blinked his eyes open. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of threads were running right in front of his eyes. Each of them looked like braided straight out of moonlight.

“Where am I?” he asked out loud, not quite expecting to receive an answer. 

But it came almost instantly.

“Main sensor. That’s where you wanted to be anyway, didn’t you?” 

_ It’s Baekhyun’s voice _ \- Jongdae’s mind provided helpfully. “Why am I here? Why can't I see you?” 

“I’m all the light, dumbass,” Baekhyun snorted. “Just like you’re the main electric core in here. At least temporarily. Gods, your core was so flashy whenever it entered the circulation.” he giggled. “It was hard to pretend that I couldn’t sense you. And before you question that: believe me. There were people who asked if there’s a trace of god in the world.”

Jongdae’s mind was running in circles, trying to catch up and connect every dot. The gusts of energy were tearing at the edges of his unphysical frame. He had many questions but time to ask only one:

“Why am I here?”

The energy in the sensor froze for a moment. Lightness flickering around him like a malfunctioning light bulb.

“Because I want you to hear my story.” not a sneer, not a snort, not a tease, but a  _ plea _ . 

_ refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse refuse _

“Okay.”

_ Not a sound but a flicker of an image this time: thin lips stretched in a sad smile. Heartbreaking.  _

“Choose whichever wire, you desire, sparks.” Baehyun laughed dully. 

Jongdae halted, the doubts rising in his head.

“I could steal most secured information,” he pointed out, hesitantly. 

Baekhyun tsked. “As if I cared about that.” the boredom evident through his voice. “Just catch a memory,  _ Sparks _ .” Something cracked loudly above Jongdae’s head, and with terror he realized that the sound was coming from the outside of the sensor. 

_ The cage was shattering and they were running out of time. _

He didn’t dare to wait any second longer. Locking himself away from the light, Jongdae closed his eyes and focused on what he wanted to find. Jolts of electricity ran through his soul and, before he knew it, his energy swirled and sank into one of thin, silver lines curling around him.

_ The man in front of him is tall and bright and he shines so bright that it almost hurts his eyes. A tiny smile pulls on the corners of his lips, as he looks at him shyly, gaze darting on the ground as soon as their eyes meet. _

_ “I’ve always admired you,” the man says quietly, a faint blush peppering his cheeks and neck, “Handling light is impressive and you are,” he takes a deep breath, “so beautiful, sir.” _

_ Jongdae - no, it’s Baekhyun - feels himself pulsating. He laughs. _

_ “Call me Baekhyun,” he says, Baekhyun holds out his hand. _

_ The stranger looks bewildered. _

_ “Sehun.” he’s eyes are grey in a pretty shade close to silver, “My soul comes from the wind.” _

_ Their fingers brush against each other, and it’s skin-on-skin, heart-next-to-heart type of feeling. Internally Baekhyun’s soul lights up with billions of fireworks. _

_ There’s no time and no space if you are carried on the wings of the wind. _

_ Sehun’s laugh is echoing in Baekhyun’s ears, when another gust ruffles his hair.  _

_ It feels like a kiss. _

(it’s so intimate that Jongdae feels like dying)

_ “Do you think you would be able to absorb the light of the stars?” Sehun asks quietly, his fingers running over the curve of Baekhyun’s spine. _

_ “Probably” Baekhyun shrugs.  _

_ He’s playing with a tiny ray of a sun, tracing it over Sehun’s chest. It’s brighter when it lands on his heart.  _

_ Sehun sighs and the light falters. _

_ “I’m not even close to your level.” There’s sadness and bitterness and a little bit of self-deprecation in Sehun’s voice and Baekhyun injects the sunshine back into his system. _

_ “My level?” a laugh threatens to tear his throat apart. The question is bitter on his tongue. “You seem to forget that I was trained to make the light mine. You were born free.” _

_ “I’m an accident.” _

_ Baekhyun takes Sehun’s face, crading it between his hands.  _

_ “No, you’re freedom and a blessing.” _

_ If Jongdae wasn’t Baekhyun, he wouldn’t know that love is mixing with a pinch of jealousy in his blood. _

(There was a crack running across Jongdae’s heart. He was jealous too.)

_ The light bleeds out of Baekhyun like a flood, streaming through his torn chest, a wound deep enough that the seeping light blurs entire scenery.  _

_ Jongdae feels himself choking on Baekhyun’s tears.  _

_ “Noooo!” he cries out, but it sounds like a squeak - not a ground-shaking command of a god. _

_ He hears the tornado before he sees it - or maybe it just blended with his blood, with the golden light bursting out of him in waves. The tears streaming down his face are hot, so hot and he desperately tries to force himself to stand up. _

_ A wheezing noise - trembling and terrified - makes its way through the sound of tornado and drills into Baekhyun’s skull, pushing him off the edge of consciousness.  _

_ He blacks out, but he’s been called a god of light for a reason. The light of his soul floats back at the surface of Baekhyun’s own darkness, to fight forces of nature that never belonged to him in the first place. _

_ His eyes open the moment when the tornado calms down, swiping the last traces of Sehun’s silhouette off the earth.  _

_ For the first time in his life Baekhyun sees god’s cease of existence. It looks like a shadow that is being chased away; Sehun’s energy shrinks, bleaches out and, finally, melts into the thin air. _

_ The light stops flowing out of Baekhyun’s wounds. _

_ He doesn’t have any more light on his own.  _

(And that’s when Jongdae started to understand - when you drain the light-god out of his light and take away its only source, all you have left is an empty shell with a gaping black hole, which is impossible to fill.)

_ “We know exactly who did this to Sehun. Humans did. They didn’t understand the beauty gods are.” said a stranger sitting in front of Baekhyun, startling a growl out of his throat. The man was wearing a military jacket with dozens of pinned stars. Baekhyun couldn’t care less about any of them. All he cared was the pain in his chest and the unknown darkness in his heart.  _

_ “We can give you a chance to have your revenge and we can give you all plenty of light to make it up for our kind’s mistakes. If only you side with us and stand on the top of the world.” continued another stranger. He looked just the same with addition of a crimson sash running across his chest. _

_ Baekhyun’s finger tapped the surface of the metallic table. The silence was stretching out between them, quite purr of the aircon making Baekhyun tremle internally. _

_ “What do you need me for? What’s for you in there?” he asked at last. “Speaking from your perspective it doesn’t seem like a fair deal.” _

_ The men looked at each other, exchanging a silent agreement. Or maybe it was a question. _

_ “The only way for this world to have sense is to maintain a balance…” started the stranger with the sash, “Sehun was a good person, you are reasonable. But others androids and gods… they are wildness and madness and that infects humans’ minds. We want to give the freedom back to humans.” _

_ “Sehun was born of freedom.” Baekhyun said involuntarily, earning pitiful smiles. _

_ “We want everyone to be free,” both of them nodded, “That’s why we need to hunt down what’s wild and mad and destroy that. We can set up a scene: an inscenized coup d'etat. You - a god - will overthrow our government, because no one will be opposed to a divine creature. You’ll look out for the city, shine bright at the citizens and we’ll… take care of the rest.” _

_ A burn of shame spread across Baekhyun’s soul. _

_ “I can’t shine anymore,” he whispered weakly, shamefully. “There’s not enough light for me…” _

_ “But what if we offered you an entire sun all for you? Ah, not even one sun, we could offer you so much more-” _

(He never witnessed the answer as something yanked him away, pushed him out of the memory, and forced him to run back to his body in a suicidal chase after the all too familiar warmth on his shoulder.)

Jongdae gasped and opened his eyes abruptly. Above his head, thick streams of light and colors were rushing out of the room. The noise made by a violent wind and crackling fire seemed to muffle the crash of glass and the hiss of electricity that was still buzzing across his body. 

Perhaps the cacophony of noises and colors would surely overwhelm Jongdae if not the warm hand resting on his shoulder and round eyes searching his face for any injuries.

_ Kyungsoo. _

“I’ll keep the light away,” said a very calm voice. Oddly - Baekhyun sounded just like in the sensor. Coming from everywhere at once.  _ He was no longer a person.  _ “I will keep myself together until you leave. Get yourself out of here.”

Choking on the remains of the electricity circulating through his body, Jongdae twisted his body out of Kyungsoo’s grip and pulled himself up. Only then did he notice Kyungsoo’s bloodshot eyes, unhealthily reddened skin and wet streams on his cheeks. Blood and tears blending into something uniquely terrifying.

“S’soo, we sotta go,” he slurred through sparks shimmering between his teeth. “You’re tsoo vulnerable to shtay here.” Jongdae wrapped his fingers around Kyungsoo’s wrists, praying for his touch to be gentle.

“I-I shot you. God, I shot you, Jongdae!” Kyungsoo’s hand started running over Jongdae’s face, his shoulders and his chest with a tiny hole left in the place where the bullet hit him. The spot was flashing with silver and golden stars.

Jongdae tugged at the wrist he was holding. The temperature kept growing - he could feel it himself, he couldn’t even imagine how painful it was for Kyungsoo.

“We’ll take care of that later.” he whined, trying to keep his panic at the bay, “Come, Soo. I’m good, let’s go.” every conduit and every channel in his body was shivering under the intensity of his emotions.

Shakily Kyungsoo raised on his feet, threads of warmth and light ruffling through his hair, burning at the tips. When he looked at Jongdae his eyes were like a surface of an ocean - only tiny ripples of shock wavering its color here and there. The light escaping through the crack of the Coral Core was messily swirling around his straightened posture, licking at his fingers and the muzzle of his pistol.

When he took the first step towards, a wave of pride exploded in Jongdae’s chest. His fingers slipped lower and found their place between Kyungsoo’s fingers.

“Let’s go.” 

“How did you know that I-”

“Minseok called me.”Kyungsoo flashed a smile. He looked breathless in more than one way.

“Bastard.” Jongdae hissed through clenched teeth but smiled involuntary. 

Finding their way out of the crumbling Tower turned out to be much easier than Jongdae anticipated. Corridors that used to be dipped in darkness, were now lightened up by streams of colorful ribbons, rushing to the closest way out. Staircases were flooded with drops of sun- and moonrays. The windows that were barely any help before, now showed an ash-grey (but grey nonetheless!) world outside the building. 

It didn’t take them long to see the exit door that no longer looked like gates to the night. Jongdae’s breath hitched and he squeezed Kyungsoo’s hand in his. He almost completely stopped breathing when Kyungsoo squeezed back. 

The door opened right in front of them, showing Minseok absolutely drenched in sweat.

“What the fuck took you so long, Kyungsoo?” he greeted grinding his teeth.

“Minseok?” Jongdae breathed out heavily. The air around him seemed to freeze. “Get out of here you too! It’s too hot in here, idiot!”

Minseok only smiled in response. Tiny snowflakes whirled in his eyes. 

“I’m sure I can manage. You two get out.” he added before pushing them out and confidently stepping into the tower.

“But-” Jongdae reached out at the doorknob helplessly.

“Leave him be,” Kyungsoo coughed out with difficulty. “Have faith. Besides, there’s something you have to do that can’t wait.”

“What?”

“Well, let’s see. Firstly, apologizing to me for trying to keep me away. Secondly, scaring me when I shot you in the chest, and blacking out. I thought I killed you!” he counted, the deep ocean in his eyes, growing more and more restless. “And me-” he inhaled sharply, “I also  _ apologize  _ and you are compelled to accept the apology.”

Jongdae shook his head, eyebrows creased, eyes travelling between the tower and Kyungsoo who was looking at him expectantly. Perhaps Baekhyun brainwashed Jongdae after all because he was truly lost in what they were talking about.

“Apologize for what?” he asked finally.

“For not believing in you enough,” Kyungsoo took a step forward. A gust of wind blowing from behind as if he wanted to push him closer to Jongdae. “For making too little effort in understanding your nature.” He took another step and moonlight fell on his face, adoring it with silver freckles. “And for not kissing you earlier.” he finished, covering the remaining distance between them and pressing his lips against Jongdae's hanging open mouth. 

Every inch of Jongdae’s body lit up in thousands of electrical discharges, threatening to tear his skin open when he replicated the kiss.

He was pretty sure that this time the explosions in his chest weren’t real.

҉ 

The front door clicked announcing, the moment Jongdae pulled his soul back into his body. His teeth bit into the lower lip to press the crackling sparks into the tender skin. He grabbed the gaming console lying on the table and a colorful picture appeared on the screen.

Kyungsoo walked into the room, sighing heavily.

“I know that you were wire-diving. Cut the crap, Jongdae.” he rolled his eyes at Jongdae's innocent face expression and an angelic smile. “How many times do I have to tell you that you should rest more.” he fell on the couch, next to Jongdae.

“I will rest when we find the bastards that manipulated Baekhyun and hunted down most of my kind,” Jongdae shrugged and pressed the ‘play’ on his controller, handing Kyungsoo the other one.

“It will take time and you know that,” Kyungsoo’s eyes darted to Jongdae. The timer on the screen had already started counting down seconds till the beginning of the race. 

“I hate time,” grumbled Jongdae. “There’s always something wrong with it. Baekhyun and Sehun had too little time... Finding these criminals takes too much time… It’s just unfair. Time is unfair.” he allowed Kyungsoo to carefully pull the controller out of his hands and maneuver himself to face him. 

Kyungsoo’s eyes were calm, oh so calm and so painfully loving. Jongdae’s fingertips tickled.

“I promised you that we will catch whoever blew the normality to pieces and I still stand by my promise.” Kyungsoo said slowly, arms winding around Jongdae’s shoulder so they were heartbeat to heartbeat. “We have Junmyeon and the MAMA, we have Minseok, we have you… We can accomplish anything we want.” his lips brushed against Jongdae’s cheek.

“Anything?” Jondae murmured back and tilted his head to the side.

“Anything.” Kyungsoo nodded firmly and captured Jongdae’s mouth with his lips.

He had never told Jongdae but every time their lips touched, he could feel the electrical shivers running under his synthetic skin. He didn’t tell Jongdae but every time they kissed, he was left with a metallic aftertaste lingering on his tongue. He hadn’t confessed yet that maybe he was running on electricity too because he needed Jongdae’s electric kisses like oxygen.

Jongdae pulled away, but his lips were still a width of a needle away from Kyungsoo’s.

“You too.” he gasped breathlessly.

Kyungsoo blinked in surprise. “What about me?”

His eyes fluttered when Jongdae’s smile touched the corner of his mouth. 

“We also have you. You’re also important to the team.” the smile grew wider. “And absolutely crucial to me.” he added softly and reclaimed the softness of Kyungsoo’s lips.

He hadn’t told Kyungsoo yet that if he was a god, then Kyungsoo was what made him feel divine.

҉ 

Hundreds of miles away, Minseok cursed loudly. The door in front of him seemed to be made out of hundreds of numbers and words. With an icy heart melting in uncertainty and nerves, Minseok gently opened the door.

Pointers of the massive, old clock in front of him moved all at once to stop once all of them were pointing at “12”. For the length of one breath, nothing was happening. That’s when Minseok noticed that every other clock in the hall stopped too. 

“Oh shit,” he whispered. His legs were frozen on the floor and not in the way he usually made them freeze when he was resting. “Time has stopped.” he mouthed in awe, his words silent but powerful in this confined space.

As if it was a magical wish to be uttered into the depth of an ancient well, clocked started ticking once again.

“I can assure you that I haven’t stopped even once.” said someone behind Minseok’s back.

The ice shreds spilled out of Minseok’s mouth as he coughed in surprise. In what seemed to be a split of a second, a tall, young man materialized right in front of him. Chills ran down Minseok’s spine at the curious look in the stranger’s eyes.

A blink of an eye, later his face lightened up in recognition as if he knew Minseok all his life.

“Oh, you’re Minseok!” his lips spread in a welcoming smile, “you’re of my kind! It’s a pleasure truly!” 

“L-likewise?” Minseok spluttered dumbly.

“Ah! Where are my manners,” his tongue clicked and it sounded like a tic of one of the clocks on the walls. “You named me, but of course you don’t know who I am.” he exhaled loudly and tilted his chin upwards. “People call me many names but you-” he shrugged snow off Minseok’s bare shoulder. “You are welcome to call me Zitao.”

**Author's Note:**

> Before any of you yells at me in the comment section - no, I don't really plan on writing a sequel. I feel like this is the kind of story that is better with slightly open ending ;) But! If any of you wants to try writing a follow-up story or side-story - hit me up after the reveals! :D I'd to chat about that, haha


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